food and family

I’m Katie, I live in Scotland with my husband and two sons, one is five and the other just a baby. I love to cook for my family and blog about the things I make and we eat.

Nigel Slater – culinary hero

For most of my twenties I had the unadulterated luck to work in a bookshop, sadly now gone but in its day one of the biggest and best in the world. In the course of my job I got the chance to meet many authors but the person I was most excited about meeting and getting to sign my books was Nigel Slater. He writes about food passionately but in such an unpretentious way that it feels accessible to all and my well thumbed copy of Appetite was one of the first cookbooks to get me really excited about cooking. He visited the shop to do a stock signing for Toast which I had read in one sitting and had loved for its humility and humour. He was very kind to me as I babbled at him and good naturedly signed all my grease-spotted, floury copies of his books, as well as writing a dedication in a copy of Toast I was getting my dad for Christmas. He was and is a culinary hero of mine.

My good friend, Fi, seeing that I had started this blog, gave me a copy of the film of Toast which inexplicably I have never seen. So today I made a version of Nigel Slater’s lentils with sausages (I scaled it down a bit because there’s only two of us here) and tonight, while Barry’s out, I’m going to sit and watch Toast.

There’s something very beautiful about green lentils, uncooked they remind me of chips of some exotic semi-precious stone. Cooked they promise something hearty but not heavy and the contrast between the orange of the carrots and the green of the lentils in this dish satisfies my long neglected artistic side.

Lentils and sausages after Nigel Slater

Olive oil

4 rashers smoked streaky bacon chopped

1 onion, chopped finely

1 carrot, diced roughly

1 stick of celery, diced roughly

200g green lentils

750ml chicken stock

2 bay leaves

4 big pork sausages

Chopped parsley

Fry the bacon in a heavy pan with a lid over a medium heat until it’s lightly coloured. Add the onion and let it soften for a minute or two while you chop the carrot and celery. Add them in too and let them soften but not colour. Add the lentils, stock, bay leafs and sausages. I made each of the big sausages I had into two smaller ones first by squeezing them in the middle, twisting them then cutting them in half. Bring it to the boil then turn it down to a simmer and cook it with the lid on for half an hour, stirring occasionally. Add the parsley, season and serve.

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4 thoughts on “Nigel Slater – culinary hero”

i could watch and listen to Nigel Slater all day. Love his food enthusiasm. I’ve never read the book but I’ve seen the film a couple of times. {don’t me wrong, I’m not normally the one to wait for the film, I just came across it before the book!}

I’m a big fan of Nigel Slater too and for some bizarre reason I have never read or warched Toast. Must rectify! We were comparing the way he and Nigella present their cookery programmes. Both talk passionately and evocatively about food. But Nigel is honest and heartfelt and that is why I adore him!